


you're a mean one, mr. grinch

by green_tea31



Series: alle jahre wieder [1]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Christmas, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Or how I imagine it, Post Mission Debrief, Writing Exercise, violence to christmas decorations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-25 00:40:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17111159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/green_tea31/pseuds/green_tea31
Summary: Mac and Jack have a lot of missions they don't talk about, Cairo is just one of them. Alternatively, how Mac and Jack ruined Christmas, the post mission debrief.





	you're a mean one, mr. grinch

**Author's Note:**

> I'm honestly not sure where this comes from? I was playing around with shifting POVs and we'd just been to the Christmas market and I guess one thing led to another...  
> No market vendors or baby Jesuses were harmed in this fic. It's purely fictional and I apologize to any Christians who feel offended by the content.  
> Warnings for handwavy government procedure. I claim no knowledge of how government anything works.  
> I should also mention that after the attack on the Christmas market in Berlin 2016 it is highly unlikely anything like this could happen as described in the fic. I have friends in Berlin and this time of year is particularly difficult for them, so a warning if anyone from that area reads this fic, it might affect you differently than intended. 
> 
> English isn't my first language. Self-betaed, all mistakes are my own.
> 
> Title chosen because I love that song.

_Jack_

Jack is quiet, very quiet. If he moves he’ll be noticed and he can’t forget that this time, he’s the target and not the hunter. His opponent is trained in the most deadly of combat techniques...

“This is Agent Miller, debriefing Agent Jack Wyatt Dalton Jr. about mission “122103” on December 21st in the city of Bremen, Germany. The mission was planned and executed in cooperation with the German police and was ultimately deemed successful. Intel was secured and retrieved but the target escaped.”

Post mission debrief.

Miller looks at Jack like he’s just scraped Jack off of the soles of his shoes. “Debrief is held according to standard procedures. Agent Dalton’s partner is being debriefed by another member of my department. The events discussed in this room are confidential and will only be made available to individuals of Director Webber’s clearance level or above”, Miller drones on and opens the file in front of him. He removes several photographs and carefully places each in front of Jack.

Jack barely suppresses a wince.

That hadn’t looked as bad when he’d been standing in the middle of it.

Miller points to the first picture. It looks pretty innocuous on its own. Just a generic white building with the ubiquitous blue and white Best Western sign on the front.

“Please, describe the events of the mission Agent Dalton, starting with your arrival at the hotel. Leave out no details, no matter how insignificant they appear at the moment.”

Jack considers telling Miller that this isn’t his first rodeo and he’s been doing post mission debriefs for longer than Miller’s been alive but well…

He’s not that courageous. Rumour has it that you have to sell your soul either to the devil or to the human resources manager to become part of the debrief team and Jack would rather not take any chances.

He takes a deep breath. This is going to take a while.

 

_Mac_

Mac doesn’t do debrief well, never has. Something of the forced stillness and being the focus of what for all intents and purposes is an interrogation done by someone supposedly on his side just gets to him.

When he first started at DXS Jack taught him all kind of tricks to deal with it.

_Look them in the eye, it makes you appear more honest, try not to fidget too much. If you need to fidget, get a pen or a glass of water so you have something to occupy your hands._

He’s gotten better at it over the years, but it’s still a chore to get through, especially after missions like this when Mac’s half-convinced he’s the reason everything went wrong in the first place. Nearly seven years as a secret agent and sometimes he still fears, deep down, that he’s only got a place here as long as he performs well in the field.

“Agent MacGyver? Are you with me?”

Mac looks up from where he’s been staring at his hands and wishes, not for the first time, that Jack was here with him and not in his own debrief two doors down the hall.

“Sorry, where were we again?” he asks Agent Winter and she smiles at him, knowingly. The only good thing about this is that, over the years, the debrief team has realized that things will go a lot smoother if Mac is being debriefed by someone he has a rapport with. Agent Catherine Winter, _call me Kat_ , has been doing his debriefs for nearly four years now. She’s an unassuming woman in her fifties with a warm smile and a secret love for chemistry and explosions. They get along great.

“Just at the beginning. You and Agent Dalton arrived at the hotel and met with your contact in the German Federal Criminal Police Office.”

“Right”, Mac begins, “we met with Detective Inspector Schneider and her team in a secure location close to the hotel. Schneider told us that the target, Johann Tauber, was getting ready to meet with a contact and that the plan was to follow Tauber and wait until the meeting to apprehend him.”

Winter jots down a few notes and nods encouragingly. “Did they know where the meeting was going to take place?”

Mac swallows, throat dry and takes a sip of water before he continues. “They suspected the meeting was to take place in the city, in the area of the Bremen Christmas Market. Tauber had visited several places there the week leading up to the meeting."

 

_Jack_

“Was this one of the possible locations for the meeting?” Miller asks and points at the next picture, a shot of several market booths with merrily twinkling lights and the delightfully tacky mix of pseudo-folkloristic kitsch and artsy entrepreneurs found all over German Christmas markets. All that’s missing is the same five Christmas songs on repeat blaring from overhead speakers and it would be like Jack never left.

Of course, the column of smoke in the background is somewhat more ominous.

Jack clears his throat. Miller leans forward, predatory anticipation in his eyes.

“Yeah, yes that was one of them.”  

 

_Mac_

“We followed Tauber into the city. He stopped close to the city hall and we settled in to wait”, Mac says and stops his report because he isn’t quite sure how to put his and Jack’s argument about the town musicians of Bremen into his story or if he even should. It wasn’t really relevant to the mission that Jack thought the statue creepy and Mac tried to explain the historical and cultural significance of the Grimm’s fairy tales to him, only to ultimately end their argument in a stalemate because neither of them could agree on whether a donkey, a dog, a cat, and a rooster would make decent musicians in the first place.

Thankfully, Winter makes the decision for him. “How long did you have to wait until the meeting?” she asks him and retrieves a few pictures from the file in front of her. Mac’s hands start fidgeting nervously without his permission. He knows what’s in these pictures.

 

_Jack_

“Half an hour?” Jack guestimates and doesn’t wince when Miller’s eyes go sharp. Dammit, Jack’s been trained better than this. He knows not to show weakness in front of other predators.

“Is that a question Agent Dalton or a statement?” Miller asks with a raised eyebrow.

“Statement, definitely statement. Half an hour, give or take a few minutes, but no more than that. We waited next to a booth that sold this German fire tongue thingy drink, the one they set on fire?” Jack mentally slaps himself. He probably shouldn’t have mentioned the fire this early.

“You mean a Feuerzangenbowle? Yes, we’ll be coming back to that in a minute”, Miller states almost gleefully while his fingers creep towards the next picture. “What happened when Tauber’s contact arrived?”

 

_Mac_

“Tauber and his contact exchanged something that we later determined to be a flash drive. We knew that we had to apprehend Tauber quickly after that or we’d risk losing him. Detective Inspector Schneider send two of her people after the contact and we went in to get Tauber”, Mac goes quiet and tries to think of a way to put the next part into words.

“Agent MacGyver, you know that the outcome of that mission wasn’t your fault, right?” Winter interrupts him and this is why he likes her and why, Mac suspects, Jack wrangled the debrief team to have her take over Mac’s mission debriefs permanently in the first place. This kind of reassuring isn’t normally part of the procedure but Winter knows when something’s bothering him and she’s also pretty good at keeping Mac on track.

Still…

“I’m the one who set the fire in the first place.”

 

_Jack_

“So it was Agent MacGyver who set the fire as a distraction?” Miller asks and that’s just – no.

“Hey, now. That’s uncalled for. It wasn’t Mac’s fault Tauber got spooked and knocked over the fire tongue thingy…”, Jack starts to argue.

“You mean the Feuerzangenbowle.”

“Whatever, the point is, this definitely wasn’t Mac’s fault. He set a small fire in a controlled area and then Tauber must have spotted us because he ran”, Jack adds determinedly.

This is why he hates being debriefed separately from Mac. Jack’s pretty sure the kid blames himself for what happened and it’s one of the reasons why Jack had put every single bit of spycraft he’d ever learned to good use to get Mac a permanent case officer for his debriefs, one who knew Mac and who wouldn’t actually blame him for this.      

Thank God for Catherine Winter. If Mac had ever been debriefed by the likes of Agent Miller here, Jack would have been forced to punch someone.

 

_Mac_

“Tauber knocked over the Feuerzangenbowle and it fell into the tree next to the booth.” Mac points to the next picture and winces.

It shows the charred remnants of what had once been a beautifully decorated six and a half feet Nordmann fir.

“Unfortunately the air was dry enough that the fire immediately went over to the next two booths…”

“And the nativity scene.” Winter interjects calmly.

“And the nativity scene. Thankfully the fire department was close at hand. Unfortunately Tauber managed to escape in the ensuing panic.” Mac takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. That was the worst of it.

Almost over.

 

_Jack_

Miller gleefully, or what Jack interprets as gleefully on his almost unflinchingly stoic face, points to the last picture which shows the burned out nativity scene, the equally burned out booths in the background still smoking slightly. Jack mentally winces at the melted baby Jesus in the manger. The figures had been made of plastic, apparently.

Merry fuckin’ Christmas, indeed.

“This is what ultimately led to you and Agent MacGyver being banned from the City of Bremen on the threat of being and I quote 'thrown into the river Weser, heads first'? Detective Inspector Schneider was very descriptive in her report.”

“I think she called us 'crazy American cowboy assholes who ruined her Christmas' and threatened us with disembowelling if we ever did so much as set a foot in the city again.” Jack adds, unhelpfully.  

 

_Mac_

“You do realize she doesn’t actually have the authority to ban you from the entire city, right?” Winter asks him sympathetically and Mac closes his eyes. He’s definitely getting a headache later on.

“Well, yeah. I don’t want to risk it. She’s very good at her job.” He tells her and smiles apologetically. “They did manage to retrieve the intel from Tauber’s contact.”

“They did and she is. The intel was very helpful and it’s why this mission has ultimately been deemed a success.” Winter puts the pictures back into the folder and stands up, Mac following suit.

“We’re done here. As you already knew, this was a simple debrief, not an inquiry.” Winter extends her hand and Mac shakes it. Before he can break the contact she puts her other hand over his too and turns back into Kat, his friend and not his debrief officer. She smiles at him reassuringly.

“I say it again, Mac. Not your fault. Sometimes these things just happens. Now go get your partner and get out of here. Enjoy the holidays.”

Mac blushes as she lets go of his hand. “You, too”, he doesn’t quite mumble and clears his throat. “I mean, enjoy the holidays.” She’s still smiling at him as he leaves and closes the door behind him.

 

_Jack_

“We done?” Jack asks impatiently.

“Yes, Agent Dalton. We’re done”, Miller says absentmindedly, head bowed over his folder and Jack doesn’t bother with being nice and leaves without saying goodbye. He’s anxious to get to Mac, see if the kid is in a better state of mind than he was before the debrief, and then get him out of here so they can get started on enjoying their Christmas. He’s really looking forward to Bozer’s famous Christmas pastrami this year.

**Author's Note:**

> I wish you all Happy Holidays and hope this brightened your day.


End file.
